Isla and the Happily Ever After(17)
Without having to discuss it, Josh and I enter the location with les BD. We’re greeted by the heavenly perfume of freshly printed text, and a youngish man with a trim beard gives us an amiable salut from behind the counter. I nod a greeting in return.
“Isla.”
It startles me to hear Josh speak my name. I turn around, and he holds up a book from the edge of the first display table. It’s the new Sfar, of course. I take it, and it opens with the delicious crack of a hard spine being tested for the first time. I’m thrilled to discover that it’s one of his fantastique titles – the pages are filled with woods and monsters and swords and royalty and love. Adventure.
“Yeah?” Josh asks.
I beam. “Yeah.”
He looks happy, and then sad, and then he turns so that I can’t see his face. It worries me. I want to know what’s wrong, but his body language tells me not to ask. But then he turns back around – as if he’d made up his mind about a conversation that I didn’t even know we were having – and blurts, “Does your boyfriend like comics?”
For a moment, I think he’s joking.
The word was a joke. But his expression is serious, and it looks like he expects a serious reply, and I am very, very thrown.
I swallow. “Excuse me?”
“Sorry.” He frowns at the table of new releases. “I don’t know why that sounded so harsh.”
My heart hammers against my chest, but I speak the words slowly. “Kurt. Isn’t. My boyfriend.”
Josh freezes. Several seconds pass. His eyes are fixed on a Tintin reissue. “He’s not?”
“No.” I pause. “No.”
“But…you’re always together. You’re so close.”
“We are close. Best friends close. Practically brother and sister close. Not – not – boyfriend and girlfriend close.”
“But…the necklace. You share keys…”
“Because we’re friends. Who hang out.”
His ears have turned a deep crimson. “So…you’ve never gone out with him?”
“No! I’ve known him since we were in diapers.” My mind is reeling. “I can’t believe you thought we were dating. For how long?”
“I— I guess this whole time.”
A new and terrible panic stirs within me. “This whole time as in this year or this whole time as in since Kurt was a freshman?”
Josh seems to have a lump in his throat. “Since he was a freshman?”
“Does everyone think we’re a couple?” Our classmates joke about it, but I never thought that they were serious.
“I don’t know.” Josh shakes his head vigorously, but he says, “Probably?”
“Ohmygod.” I’m finding it difficult to breathe.
He lets out a strange laugh. It’s near hysterical, but it stops as abruptly as it starts. “So are you dating anyone? Someone else?”
“No. No one since last year.”
“Cool.” His fingers tap rapidly against the stack of Tintins.
I fight to keep my voice steady. “And you? Are you seeing anyone?”
“Nope. No one since last year.”
I want to weep with joy. He liked me, but he thought he couldn’t like me. It’s difficult to wrap my mind around this idea. I suspected his attraction, but the full truth of the situation is unbelievable. How is it possible that my crush – my three-year-long crush – has a crush on me? This doesn’t happen in real life.
Josh is equally thrown. He’s grasping for something to say when his eyes catch on the Sfar. “There’s more downstairs, right? Should we go down there?”
“No.” I hug the book with both arms. “This is exactly what I wanted.”
Chapter seven
I’m still clutching the book – now through a blue Album bag – as we wander towards the Seine. We have another hour before I’m supposed to meet Kurt for sushi in the Marais. Night time has officially arrived, and the streets are abuzz. I feel as if I’m floating. Glancing, smiling, blushing. Both of us. My voice has abandoned me. Josh’s left hand grasps his right elbow, an anchor to keep him in one place.
How does one proceed in a situation like this? If only the discovery of mutual admiration could lead promptly into making out. If only I could say, “Listen. I like you, and you like me, so let’s go find a secluded park and touch each other.”
We steer around a group of tourists pawing through bins of miniature Notre-Dames. Josh swallows. “Just so we’re clear,” he says, “I wasn’t, like, trying to steal you away from Kurt when I asked if you wanted to go to the store with me. I was trying to, you know…be your friend. I don’t want you to think I’m a creep.”